Crate digging, groove mining, recontextualizing

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:34:42 -0700

One of the great things about the sharity blogs is that many of the albums ripped, uploaded, and blogged are done so by fans. While some bloggers just cut and paste the Wikipedia or AMG entries for albums into their blog posts, others write a couple "why I like this record" paragraphs, and for me that often influences me to download and have a listen rather than pass. If a band has a fan who can articulate the reasons for their fandom, that makes a good case for me possibly liking it too. (On the other hand, even the worst bands have fans; ultimately the proof is in the listening.) So that's how I happened to be listening to the "second German only LP of excellent funky prog" by early 70s British blues-rock band Rumplestiltskin. I found it to be all right, with some inspired passages, but mostly rather plodding. And then track six opens up with a wildly funky guitar lick, and I had high hopes for the song; an acoustic guitar comes in, that doesn't bode well, but maybe it'll pick up; then some drums, not very funky, but still promising; and then it all fizzles out into a milquetoast vocal verse:

06. Through My Looking Glass

Rumplestiltskin

Things pick up in the middle of the song, with an uplifting "wizard gospel" chorus and then a repeat of that opening guitar lick, but it winds right back down. That got me thinking of the whole practice of crate digging (scouring boxes of old records for long-lost songs that might pack a modern dancefloor) and groove mining (scouring boxes of old records for long-lost songs that include funky bits that might be sampled and repurposed as a dance record rhythm loop); is that good? Is it right just to pick and choose bits of old records out of context without trying to appreciate the original organic whole that they came from? Well, it was trying to appreciate the whole that had me listening to the record in the first place, and I tried, but really I just like those few bits and pieces. And I don't think it's my fault for being shallow, I think the original organic whole just isn't good enough. (The second part of the description I quoted above is "by UK session/library heroes Alan Hawkshaw, Clem Cattini and Herbie Flowers amongst others," one of those others being guitarist Alan Parker. He laid down plenty of funky licks for library records; I'll try to dig up one or two prime examples for a future post.)

Then there are modern records which are little (or nothing) more than drumbeats; Shawn Lee has done several of them, and even James Brown's legendary drummer Clyde Stubblefield has made some. Some put some music over the beats, but not enough to make an actual song. Take the recent EP by MRR-ADM (Michael Raymond Russell & Adam Douglas Manella):

02 Track 02

MRR-ADM

Awesome beats, but not much music there. Recontextualizing old licks with new beats, then, can benefit both the old and the new. Not that these beats will go with the Rumplestiltskin lick, or that I want to spend my time putting beats and licks together; more power to those who do.

Finally, there are some works that need no manipulation to be recontextualized: for instance, Black Sabbath's heavy metal classic "Supernaut" needs little, if any, tweaking to fit into an industrial-groove set (but that hasn't stopped Al Jourgensen from covering it--twice):

05 - Supernaut

Black Sabbath

That's got to be Tommy Iommi's best lick ever, and that drum break in the middle is pure breakbeat funk! Was that just a response to the Stones' fancy percussion on "Sympathy for the Devil"? Whatever the case, "Supernaut" was Bill Ward's shining moment, and it showed another side to Sabbath that made them truly great; far better than the crop of doom/sludge bands they engendered, who I imagine can only appeal to people who have lost all interest in life. Electric Wizard, anyone?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Air Guitar Nation

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:20:03 -0800

My brother gave us the Air Guitar Nation DVD for Christmas, which chronicles the USA's first entry into the Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, Finland in 2003. The documentary centers on US rivals Dan "Bjorn Turoque" Crane and David "C-Diddy" Jung, the latter shown here:

C. Diddy Air Guitar Nation Performance

Need I mention that the movie is a blast? My daughter is so taken with it that she has signed up to do air guitar for her elementary school talent show. I helped her pick out a song last night, then edited out some slow bits to get it down to under three minutes. She asked me to post the song here, so here it is: she'll be rocking out to Buckethead's "Brewer in the Air"--

Brewer in the Air

Buckethead

This comes from Buckethead's 2007 album Pepper's Ghost, which received a mixed verdict from fans. I'm mostly familiar with Buckethead from his 1990's (pre-Guns'n'Roses) work with Praxis, Bill Laswell's thrash-funk-prog project. (Amazingly, he has kept up the mask-and-KFC-bucket disguise for 15 years or so.) Pepper's Ghost is definitely more conventional than that groundbreaking work, but on the other hand it's perfectly suited for, say, air guitaring. I'm going to have fun coaching this performance!

Send to a friend

Merry Christmas!

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 21:28:43 -0800

Merry Christmas from me, Nigel, David, and Derek!

20 Spinal Tap - Christmas with the Devil

Spinal Tap

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Crate digging, groove mining, recontextualizing

Air Guitar Nation

Merry Christmas!